The MessyCoder's June Jam

This jam is all about narrative. Whether you're weaving a deep emotional tale, experimenting with unconventional storytelling mechanics, or turning the act of telling a story itself into gameplay, we want to see how you tell a story through games.

Make it heartbreaking, hilarious, mysterious, or completely absurd as long as it’s centred around the idea of story.

It can be:

A linear tale or a branching narrative
A game about telling stories, listening to them, or remembering them
Anything where story is the core - be it theme, mechanic, or mood

So grab your pens, keyboards, or crayons...
It’s Story Time. Tell us something we’ll never forget.

Who Can Join:

We encourage all developers to join, both beginner and expert levels. Groups are welcome and we also have our own Discord channel (https://discord.gg/VdszedmFsf) to chat with fellow gamers, ask questions and hear up to date announcements.

Jams are great at bringing us all closer together, and have a great time whilst participating. Therefore we would like to encourage "TEAMWORK", but please not teams bigger than 4 people. Being part of a team is not a requirement but more of a request that you try to expand your horizons and get uncomfortable to make yourself and others better.

We also understand that with the wide breadth of our community this could be hard so.... we are giving you all 2 weeks to complete this jam to allow for the struggles that come with different time zones, real life, etc.

Sponsors: (beautiful badgers)

Arawn > https://bit.ly/arawn

Steve.Smith.Software > https://bit.ly/stevesmithsoftware

Rules:

While there are no limits to your imagination, we ask you respect the following guidelines.

Please follow the theme given for the jam -- if you have questions, reach out to us here on Discord [http://bit.ly/messydiscord]
You cannot use any game projects you have started previously but you can use a template or kit that you have as a base. Your game must be created from scratch (but you are free to use assets of course) and submitted before the deadline of the game jam. We will not accept late submissions. You can use components you have made before such as character controllers, as it would be like using an asset. But you can’t reuse levels or asset flipping a demo scene as that’s not really in the spirit of the jam.
Games need to be uploaded to Itch.io to run from the web browser or downloadable.
If you are using other languages, you must include English subtitles or the like.
NSFW are allowed, however please be tasteful about your selections of presentation and give warning in the description. You will know when you are going too far, so behave and don't. Give warnings if it's NSFW.
At least one of you have to be a member of the community. Do not worry, it is never too late to join our Discord and become a follower on either Twitch or YouTube (the links are hidden in plain sight on this page)
AI?? You can use generative AI but you MUST state what has been done by AI in your project.
State the assets used. If you used assets then reference what you have used in the project.

Judging:

Judging will be based on the following criteria:

Relevant to the theme - Use your imagination and come up with anything that can be remotely related to the theme.
Fun to Play - Did you enjoy playing it? Will you come back and play it again?
My eyes! They Burn!! - How good does the game look? We are not expecting AAA polished stunning graphics but we are looking for well thought out UI, colour themes, and graphics that complement the story & gameplay you are trying to make
Music to my ears - What's the audio like? Does the audio make any difference to the experience of playing the game? Does the audio complement the gameplay?
How did they do that? - Were there some special features? Did the dev do something in particular that impressed you and made you wonder how they achieved it?

Winners will be announced the Saturday after submissions have closed. Results are not public to avoid people who got little to no votes being made public, but people are free to request their own results and then share them to whomever they wish.

If you have any questions on the above, don’t hesitate to reach out to us on our discord channel https://discord.gg/VdszedmFsf.

We can also be reached by the following methods:

Twitch: www.twitch.tv/TheMessyCoder
YouTube: www.youtube.com/TheMessyCoder
Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheMessyCoder
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheMessyCoder
BlueSky: www.bsky.app/profile/themessycoder.bsky.social

Good Luck, Have fun, and be beautiful ;)

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. While clicking these links won't cost you any money, they will help me fund my development projects while recommending great assets!

Unity Asset Store: www.bit.ly/themessystore